Naming
by starfishstar
Summary: Harry and Ginny talk names.


Disclaimer: Don't own them. Just want them to be happy.

Author's note:

I was idly musing, one day, on the question of why Harry and Ginny gave their daughter Luna's name (just having fought with the DA back in the day doesn't really seem like enough, because then why don't they have a son named Neville?) and decided I rather liked the idea that Luna ends up being one of Ginny's very good friends – she starts dropping by the Burrow (she lives so close, after all, and she and Ginny always got on well) and gradually they become close, even best friends.

Then I got to further pondering the kids' names, and the (valid) complaints I've seen some people put forth that they all seem to be Harry's Important Remembered People, without Ginny getting any say. This little conversation was the result…

– – – – –

The dinner dishes washed and dried, Harry went to find Ginny in the back garden. She was sitting on the swinging bench they'd built after James was born and James was asleep next to her in his push-chair, which Ginny had set gently rolling back and forth by magic.

Ginny herself was knitting, looking perfectly serene as multiple needles flew in and out of her hands, and Harry assumed she was knitting yet another something for the new baby. He still found it somewhat terrifying to watch Ginny knit, but then, she'd learned from the best, and Molly had never yet stabbed any one of her family members with a stray needle. And since a knack for knitting was one of only a very few ways Ginny had started turning into her mother since becoming a mother herself, Harry figured that was all right.

Ginny smiled up at him, the late evening light casting her face in a warm glow, and patted the seat beside her with one hand, before deftly catching the needles and laying them to one side.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," he replied and settled in next to her, pressing a kiss to her temple and then one to her round belly for good measure. He leaned over to rock James a little, unnecessary though the gesture was, with a perfectly good spell doing the job. Ginny settled comfortably into the curve of his arm and Harry thought, not for the first time, that he was a very lucky man.

"I have a request," he said. "Well, more of a suggestion. No, I guess actually a request."

Ginny grinned. "Spit it out, Harry. You've been thinking about names, haven't you?"

"How do you always know?" Harry complained. "Sometimes I think you're a secret Legilimens."

"Maybe," Ginny said, reaching up to ruffle his hair affectionately. "But you've also got the same expression you had when you came to ask me if I would mind terribly naming our firstborn child after the two most important men in your life."

"Er, yeah," Harry said. "About that."

"Yet more important men?" she asked.

"Well, I was thinking, if it's a boy…" Harry started.

"If it's a boy…"

"I'd kind of assumed there would be about a hundred Albuses running around in this generation, but seeing as there aren't, and we really owe Dumbledore so much…"

"Hm," Ginny said. "I can't imagine why no one's given their baby a name we all associate with a very, very old wizard with a long white beard, can you? Albus," she tried it out. "Like Albion, ancient Britain. Maybe Al for short. I could get used to that, I think. It would be nice to think of his name living on, since he never had children."

"It would," Harry agreed fervently.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "There's more?"

Harry didn't even bother asking how she knew. "Well… I don't know how you'll feel about this…"

"I can't feel anything about it at all until you tell me what you're thinking," she reminded him.

Harry took a deep breath, then said very quickly, "Albus Severus?"

This time both Ginny's eyebrows shot up. "Snape?"

"I hate to think of him not being remembered either. He loved my mother, he died for her in the end, and it seems somehow fitting to have his name and Dumbledore's together, the two sides that came together after all. And it's not like we would call him that, day to day, but it's actually not such a terrible name, my mum just called him Sev –" He broke off and looked at Ginny. "I'm overthinking it, right?"

"Mm-hm." She leaned back against the swing and set them rocking a little. "Let me think about it, okay? They're not bad ideas, but I need to roll them around in my head a little bit."

"Although I do feel like we ought to name the next child after someone in your family," Harry said. "Arthur would be the obvious choice, but Louis already has his name as a middle name…"

Ginny laughed. "I don't think you need to worry about the Weasley family producing enough children to honour all its important names."

"But is there anyone you'd want to name the baby after?"

"If it's a girl," Ginny said thoughtfully, "Luna might be nice."

"Luna?"

"You know, like my good friend?"

Harry shifted uncomfortably. "I know I just offered and all, so now I feel like a prat, but I'd always hoped – I mean, I was sort of thinking –"

"Harry." Ginny caught his hand and made him look at her. "Of course our daughter will be Lily. I meant Luna as a middle name. That sounds nice together, doesn't it? Lily Luna?"

Harry gaped at Ginny, then grabbed both her hands and kissed her soundly. "You are the best wife _ever_," he said.

Ginny laughed. "I bet you say that to all your wives."

"Yes," Harry agreed. "But you're the only one where I really mean it."

Ginny smiled and they sank back into companionable silence, as she rocked them back and forth on the swinging bench in their garden in the evening sun.


End file.
